Writing (mostly) about disruptive trends and technologies in the 21st century

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Web Secret 393: When your phone is gone

I have only lost my cellphone once.

It fell out of my improperly closed handbag in Times Square. It was December 27, 2013. After a performance of Twelfth Night with the amazing Mark Rylance.

You can only imagine the trauma.

Fortunately for you and me, the New York Times came out with a handy blog post on how to mitigate this all too common disaster.

Here is author Katie Benner's primer on how to track and disable your smartphone if it goes missing.

1. FIRST, go into settings to enable the phone to back up your data and send you its location. If you have an iPhone, go to settings and tap iCoud. Turn on iCloud Backup, Find My iPhone and Send Last Location.

2. IF YOUR DEVICE GOES MISSING, you can then sign into iCloud.com or use the Find My iPhone app to see your device on a map, lock the device and place a message on the home screen with a contact number.

3. IF THE PHONE IS REALLY GONE, you can remotely protect the data by clicking the Erase iPhone button on iCloud or the Find My iPhone App. If you have backed up your phone in iCloud, you should be able to download all your information onto a replacement device.

4. FOR ANDROID PHONES, go into the device’s settings and then into security to activate the Android Device manager to track and erase a misplaced phone. If you are logged into your Google account, you can also type “find my phone” into a Google search box and see your phone on a map and make it ring, though you can’t lock or erase the phone.